Let's be clear, right off the bat: This is neither a post about cats nor about Kanye West. This is, however, a post about what happens once one writes a blog post that may be less-than-favorable, albeit satiric, about American icons.
Let's also be clear about something else: Life in the Boomer Lane is non-aggressive to a fault. She will cross the street to avoid walking past two people who are having an argument. She once dropped a dish (which broke) when her mother said her name in a slightly aggressive (to her ears) way. She was always eliminated immediately from musical chairs. On the other hand, she always won dodge ball games because when the ball was thrown in her direction, she became catatonic and never moved. Her classmates spent all of their time trying to eliminate the kids who were moving targets. Therefore, she was, almost always, the last man standing.
This is to say that LBL would not knowingly write anything so provocative as to incite people to riot, especially if she were the target of such riot. However, this has now happened twice, and it's been less-than-pleasant.
The first time was with a post she wrote about Kanye West. It was precipitated by several things Kanye had done that annoyed LBL. Stupidly, she vented. The post hit Twitter and the floodgates opened. Thousands of comments came hurling in her direction, accusing her of being everything from white to stupid to old to racist. LBL will only make claim to two of those. There were also many comments that expressed agreement. But the general experience was such that she considered legally changing her name. At the very least, she vowed never to write the name "Kanye" in any post (which is about to be violated).
The second time was this week when she wrote a satiric piece about research on cat behavior. The research came to outrageous conclusions, and LBL, in her usual writing style, took the findings and made fun of them by seeming to take them seriously. Huffington Post featured the piece at the top of the front page of their 50 section. Again, the floodgates opened.
Thus far, there are over 200 comments. The vast majority are scathing. LBL has been accused of being responsible for inciting others to perpetrate animal abuse, of being a terrible writer (worse, of being not funny), of being an irresponsible cat owner whose cat should be removed from her home immediately.
It would do no good for LBL to say she was merely trying to be funny. She already knows that cat owners have a much lower threshold for anything that maligns cats. Write a satiric post about how small children ruin one's life on a daily basis, and all the comments will be from young moms who totally relate. Not so with cats. Muffy/Fluffy/Binky has a permanent pass.
It would do no good to say that LBL's own cat, Miracle the Cat, is, just shy of 17-years-old, in remarkably good health. She is fed, watered, brushed, and petted on a daily basis. She sleeps in bed with LBL and Now Husband. She has expensive, upholstered steps at the foot of the bed, to ease her way up. She is, in all ways that matter, one lucky cat.
But it would do good to say these things. Ever. Just as it would do no good to say that LBL's piece on Kanye never said anything derogatory about his musical ability. It was about his God complex and his choice of spouse.
LBL will never write about Kanye again. Just a couple of days ago, she read that Kanye went berserk at a concert, because a man in a wheelchair didn't stand to applaud him, like the rest of the audience did. She didn't write a post about that. She has learned her lesson.
She hereby declares that she will never write another post about cats. Miracle the Cat will continue to do the doofus, inexplicable things she does (like eating one pellet of food at a time, on her paw) and the world will never know.
LBL will limit herself to skewering odious world leaders, US politicians, inane research, nutty news articles, and posts that make fun of herself. She will also do some research on ferret owners, and, should she discover that they are not as sensitive as cat owners, she will plan at least one post about ferret research.
Earlier on Huff/Post50:
